Follow the colour code: Tiger or Yellow/Black (Offensive Waste)

01 November 2016

Initial Medical is releasing a series of blogs to help people understand the purpose of the healthcare waste colour codes, and also how important segregation of healthcare waste is. Every month we will be selecting one colour of the colour coding guide; the colour of this month will be Yellow & Black (commonly referred to as Tiger), which represents offensive waste.

The Colour Tiger (Offensive Waste)

Within the healthcare industry, the tiger stripe is allocated to offensive or hygiene waste generated in various different industries and business premises throughout the UK. Offensive waste includes the following items when infection is not present:

Offensive waste is non-clinical and non-infectious, so it does not require any specialist treatment prior to disposal. In environments where other waste streams are produced, however, it is still important to separate.

Requiring no special treatment, this waste can be taken to deep landfill or recycled, so effective segregation can help reduce waste disposal costs for the business and reduce the environmental impacts of the disposal methods used, such as incineration.

In a bid to reduce their carbon footprint and really make a difference, leading waste management companies such as Initial Medical now recycle waste as the preferred disposal method wherever possible. Due to innovative recycling centres and procedures now available, even items such as nappies can be repurposed by reclaiming the valuable plastic and fibre to produce new products.

Depending on your needs and volume of offensive waste produced, there are various waste bins and tiger bags available on the market.

Follow the Colour Code

In order to comply with the relevant regulations and ensure your waste is properly segregated and disposed of, make sure you ‘Follow the Colour Code’.

It is important to know the different types of colour codes for your waste, if you would like to know more about clinical waste or the different types of waste within the colour coding guide, please view our website.